Wednesday, November 21, 2012

From Tragedy to Triumph

by
Rabbi Pinchos Lipschutz

When we were
children, there were decorative signs that hung in classrooms. They depicted
the chodshei hashanah, the months of the Jewish year, through
illustrations.

Each month
was illustrated with a mitzvah or a Yom Tov connected to it, to
create a warm feeling and association in our young minds. Tishrei had
the shofar, lulav, esrog and sukkah. Kislev
had the menorah.

There was one
month for which there was no specific illustration: Cheshvan. Some signs
had a picture of Kever Rochel, in tribute to the mother whose yahrtzeit
falls during Cheshvan. Others had a picture of driving rain, remembering
the Mabul that wiped out a world during that month.

Either way,
whether the picture was the water of Rochel’s perpetual tears or the furious
waters of flood, the image evoked the same sense of sadness. It is Mar
Cheshvan, a bitter month, devoid not only of a Yom Tov, but also of
cheer.

This year, Cheshvan
ended on that tearful note, the images of rushing waters and ceaseless tears
taking on the dimensions of real life. Very real.

During Cheshvan’s
waning days, acheinu Bnei Yisroel in Eretz Yisroel were once again in
the line of fire. After a relatively brief hiatus, life once again became a
series of sirens and screams. The reports from that tiny country fill us with
fear and trepidation, because we know that the enemy they face is inhuman. A
suicidal, maniacal beast, Hamas is governed by a charter that calls for the
destruction of not only Israel and Zionists, but of Jews everywhere. Yet, when
Israel, which cares about its citizens and their safety, takes legitimate steps
to protect them, the world is perturbed and troubled by the loss of Palestinian
lives in Gaza. They ignore the barrage of hundreds of rockets fired by Hamas at
Israel’s population. They ignore the history of terror and the truth of the
historical facts.

Imagine
Israeli soldiers forced into combat in places like Gaza City, home to 500,000
people. Our brothers are exposed to snipers in apartments and on narrow, unfamiliar
streets. Focused on staying alive, they also need to be mindful of killing
civilians in those very crowded neighborhoods where bombs and rockets are
planted in schoolyards and backyards. They are ever attentive of doing what
they must without unleashing the cynical ire of the same world that stands by
silently as Syria massacres tens of thousands of its own citizens at will.

Since
Israel’s last Gaza incursion, the Arabs there have improved their fighting
capabilities. They have better weapons, better anti-plane and tank
capabilities, better rockets and better training. In the last war, their
bravado was stronger than their bravery. Their fighters ran and hid when the
Israeli soldiers came. This time, they have been trained by Iran to stand and
fight. Whether they will, is beyad Hashem, but the danger is real and
quite serious, and we dare not take it lightly.

America,
Canada and a handful of European countries verbalized their support for Israel,
while the rest of the world is occupied with being even-handed, denouncing the
violence on both sides. Once again, the familiar storyline repeats itself, a
macabre play with everyone taking their parts: Israel as the aggressor, the
Arabs as the victims, and Jewish blood considered hefker. Peace and
truth are forgotten as war looms yet again.

In the past,
we would look on and offer tefillos and Tehillim from our
comfortable perch in America, but we didn’t know much about war, boruch
Hashem.

Thankfully,
the vast majority of us have never experienced war. We never experienced that
fear or the panic attacks brought on by air raid sirens. We never had to run
out of our homes in the middle of dinner, into the dark of night. We never had
to rouse sleeping children and carry them to safety. We were never in a
position where the enemy was rapidly approaching to attack and annihilate us.
We never had the fear that the whole world was lined up against us, seeking our
destruction and annihilation, and that death was imminent. We never had to run
out of our homes to hide in concrete pipes, seeking shelter in a small dank
room, or being without provisions and power for weeks on end.

We never had
to deal with the aftermath of war either, picking up the pieces and putting
life back together. It is hard for us to even look at pictures of what war
causes, let alone imagine the situation in which our brethren all across Eretz
Yisroel presently find themselves. We never contended with the sense of
loneliness foretold by the posuk, which is now a reality, of an entire
world condemning our every move, lined up against us: “hein am levodod
yishkon.”

Until now.

Now, we’re a
bit more educated and more aware of what difficult conditions are like. When
our brothers in Eretz Yisroel flee their apartments to hide in concrete pipes
or seek shelter in dark, small, dank rooms, living without power or provisions,
perhaps we have a bit more of an appreciation of the challenge. We see pictures
of blown-out walls and shells of residential buildings and are well able to
imagine the pain of seeing the home - the bricks and mortar that carry so many
memories - wiped out in an instant.

This year,
during the month of Mar Cheshvan, which ended against the backdrop of
war’s first shots, we experienced devastation and destruction right here, in
peaceful New York and New Jersey.

We saw what
happens when the malachei chavolah are unleashed. It was no war, boruch
Hashem, but it gave us the ability to really comprehend what happens when
man is without options. “Nature” can be a foe too, Rachamana litzlan.
Raging waters with a force none of us knew possible showed no mercy as they
came aground and swallowed everything in their path.

We are
fascinated by the sea and its beauty. Oceanfront real estate is most prized;
the view of the waves washing ashore is coveted and calming. That is, until Hakadosh
Boruch Hu decides that “g’vul samta bal ya’avorun,” the law He put
in place at creation, stopping waves as they reach their Divinely-ordained
border, needs to be temporarily set aside.

I had never
been to Sea Gate until last week, when I visited there along with a couple
non-descript tzaddikim who head the Chasdei Lev organization. It is
well-known that “eino domeh shmiah le’reiyah.” There’s nothing that
compares to seeing something with your own eyes and experiencing it with your
own heart. Everything you’ve read about and all the pictures you’ve seen of the
destruction in Sea Gate doesn’t compare to what you feel when you arrive there.

Two weeks
later, the hard-hit areas we have all read about still look and feel like a war
zone. It is like a war-ravaged area after the victorious army has gone and left
destruction in its wake.

We saw police
all over, along with sanitation workers, dump trucks, huge tractors, and all
types of workers cleaning, banging, pushing, pumping and doing every type of
work imaginable.

We saw houses
suspended in mid-air, their contents piled up in front, waiting to be removed.
It almost felt like an invasion of privacy to encounter the items and keepsakes
that made up people’s lives. Their toys, clothing and books formed little
mountains waiting to be taken away in a sanitation vehicle.

The piles
composed of the fabric of people’s lives were wet with tears and from rain,
drenched and ruined. From the outside, some homes appeared whole and undamaged,
but you cannot imagine what they look like inside. You see sheetrock, beams,
tiles, refrigerators and stoves along with suitcases, pictures, books and more.

You see
pieces of collected memories sitting there, forlorn, at the side of the road,
drenched beyond repair. You see that and your heart melts.

Who among us
doesn’t associate the voice of Mordechai ben David with joy and fervor? His
songs are the essence of joy. People listen to them and are uplifted. You grew
up with him and his songs. You picture him as tall and handsome, exuding
strength.

We pull up to
Sea Gate and park in front of Reb Mordechai’s unassuming house. He is standing
outside with a few people, waiting for us. Yet, it doesn’t look like him. The
usually tall, strong man seems shrunken and sad. You find it hard to accept
that the voice that brings joy and chizuk to so many of acheinu bais
Yisroel is the same voice talking to you, speaking slowly and haltingly of
sadness, of destruction, of the lives of his neighbors turned upside down.

He shows us
where the concrete wall meant to hold back the sea in times of emergency was.
It’s gone. Washed away. He points this way and that. “Look at what happened
here. Look at what happened there.” The voice that has spent a lifetime singing
the niggunim of Simchas Torah and Purim is now chanting
the bitter tune of Eichah.

“Come inside.
Let me show you my house,” he says.

One room
after another, destroyed and ripped apart.

“This was my
recording studio,” he says.

His voice is
flat and the room suddenly looks so small. You imagine it pulsating with joy
and music, but now it’s soggy and moldy, with a smell that drives you away.

“This is
where I stored my CDs,” the voice says. And so it goes.

We go out for
a tour. There is a huge tractor trailer overloaded with ruined seforim,
now destined for shaimos. Outside of it is a box that caused me to
glance a few times to make sure I was seeing correctly. It was a case of ruined
seforim, but the covers were intact and clearly visible. The title of
the seforim? “Gishmei Brocha.”

Our group
began to think about what could have been and what was. What was until now for
decades long; and the once-in-a-century storm we just suffered. A message from
Heaven, for us to ponder, no doubt. Think of what could have been and what was.

We traveled
down block after block of sandy streets, with eerie silence and no people or
vehicles except for those there to help with restoring. The more we saw, the
more our hearts broke.

“Come down
this block,” says Reb Mordechai.

There we saw
Mr. Zimmerman’s house, the one captured in dozens of photographs, ripped in
half by the raging sea. We saw the house across the street. Condemned. Stay
away. Don’t approach. This house is a danger zone.

Silently, we
bid him farewell and move along to Belle Harbor, Bayswater and Manhattan Beach
and see the same horrific scene again and again.

We begin to
know what it’s like to be in a war zone.

It’s
pointless to compare the destruction. Each neighborhood sustained a beating,
each resident is suffering, and each and every person who was affected is an olam
molei. Every family who sat in the cold and dark of a destroyed home,
bereft of their possessions, is a tragedy that sits on our hearts and minds.

In each
neighborhood we had previously visited, the vast majority of the residents were
severely impacted, their homes ruined and their lives turned upside down. But
by sheer numbers, since it is comprised of a much larger concentration of acheinu
Bnei Yisroel, the Far Rockaway/Five Towns area was worst hit.

The Achiezer
organization established by Rabbi Boruch Ber Bender four years ago is a
multi-faceted mosadhachessed not found in any other city. In a
regular week, they handle between 700 and 800 calls. Kodmah refuah lemakoh.
The infrastructure was in place to deal with a calamity. Since the hurricane
hit, Achiezer has been handling 1,000 calls a day.

The calls
relate to everything from people who need psychological help to overcome the
trauma they experienced, people who need help cleaning out their homes, to
those with no food, money, or place to be. The calls were still pouring in from
people without power.

Achiezer is
so good at what it does that when the New York State Homeland Security
Commissioner met with them to assess the damage and coordinate post-Sandy
efforts, he was so impressed that he told the staff members that he had never
seen a non-governmental organization like theirs.

When the
storm hit, no one really thought it would be as bad as predicted.

They were
right.

It was much
worse.

To provide a
picture of the scope of the devastation and how many people were impacted,
consider that the homes of no less than fifty employees of Yeshiva Darchei
Torah and over seventy employees of Torah Academy for Girls were heavily
affected.

It wasn’t
only Darchei Torah and TAG families. There were hundreds more, including
doctors, lawyers, professionals and blue collar workers. Every strata of
society was affected by a storm that didn’t discriminate.

Think about
all the families who were left with nothing. No clothes, no boiler, no electric
panel, no seforim, no furniture, no books, no pictures, no cameras, no
kitchen. Nothing. They were out in the street, but the street had become a
rushing, angry torrent. It was dark and their children were hungry and scared.
The parents didn’t know what was going to happen and when it would end. They
still don’t know when they will be able to put their lives together and start
all over again.

The night of
the storm, 70 panicking families called Hatzolah and said that they were
trapped in their homes. The water was rising, filling the basement, then the
first floor and then the second floor. In some homes, the water rose until the
attic. The people were frantic. Some were sure they were going die. They said “Shema
Yisroel” and called family members to bid farewell. There were no options
of rescue. The streets were rivers. They were impassable. There were trees and
wires down everywhere.

A trooper was
stopped. “There is a family trapped in a house. Do you have any boats available
to rescue them?”

“No,” he
responded. “I’m so sorry, but there are 37 rescues ahead of that family. They
will have to wait… and pray.”

Hatzolah
couldn’t get there. The NYPD couldn’t get there. Firemen couldn’t get there. So
volunteers, whose hearts were torn by the anguished cries of their brothers in
distress, “stole” rescue boats out of the fire stations to reach people
stranded in their homes. They literally risked their lives to save others.

It is thanks
to heroes like them that no one died that night in Far Rockaway and the Five
Towns. And it is thanks to heroes like them that life is slowly returning to
normal in a community that lost so much - not just objects, but, for many,
parts of themselves.

It is thanks
to heroes like the people from Achiezer and Chasdei Lev, who haven’t stopped
helping people since the hurricane blew out. Achiezer has been raising and
disbursing much-needed funds. Chasdei Lev supplied generators for power, pumps
to rid homes of water, and gasoline to power generators and cars. They
organized massive volunteer clean-ups of hundreds of homes, supplied food, and
arranged for huge shaimos trucks - three tractor trailers, in fact. All
of this has been done quietly, swiftly, and free of charge.

Now, they are
organizing good people who are going around from house to house replacing the sheetrock
they ripped out last week, laying down new floors in place of those that were
waterlogged, affixing electric panels in place of those that were destroyed,
purchasing and shlepping boilers and heaters, and providing one house
after the next with ovens, stoves, couches, beds, clothes, toys and whatever
else people need. They rescued the people physically - they fed them, clothed
them, and pumped out their basements - and they are now doing whatever they can
to put them on the road to normalcy again.

For two
weeks, thousands of donated meals were served to people who had no food, no
heat, no stove and no light. Still, last week, there were hundreds of people
eating supper at Congregation Beth Sholom. We were there, and we saw proud,
dignified people, like the ones who live next door, being treated to a warm,
light place and a hot meal. On the way out, they packed up food for Shabbos.

In the gym of
Yeshiva Sh’or Yoshuv, Chasdei Lev organized thousands of clothing items for
entire families, all brand new and all free, so that people who were left with
the clothes on their backs could rebuild their wardrobes.

Would we
ever, in our wildest dreams, have imagined America of 2012 as a place where so
many of our brothers and sisters would be without basic clothing and shelter?

As the Second
World War began, Lithuania and Poland were sliced up like a pie by Russia and
Germany, each claiming large swaths of land. Vilna somehow remained
independent, under Lithuanian control, and it thus became a place of refuge for
thousands of Bnei Torah who fled there from all over. Seventy years
later, Rav Yaakov Galinsky remembers when he arrived there.

A young bochur,
he was anxious to take advantage of the opportunity to meet the gadol hador,
Rav Chaim Ozer Grodzensky, who lived in Vilna. Rav Chizkiyohu Yosef Mishkovsky
was the rov of Yankel’s old town and arranged an appointment for him.
The night before, Yankel was too excited to sleep, expecting the farher of
his lifetime. He reviewed all he had been learning in Maseches Yevamos
that zeman so that when the towering gadol would ask him a
question, he would be able to offer an intelligent response.

The bochur
arrived at the appointed time, only to find some thirty people ahead of him on
line. Finally, Rav Mishkovsky opened the door and called his name. Before he
knew it, young Yankel was standing in the company of Rav Chaim Ozer. He
mentally readied himself for the inevitable: “What are you learning? What daf?
Let’s hear a chiddush.”

But that
didn’t happen. Rav Chaim Ozer asked three questions, which were quite different
than anything Yankel imagined they would be.

The first
one: ‘When is the last time you received a letter from your parents?”

“Um, half a
year ago,” stammered Yankel. “They are on the Russian side and we ran to the
German side.”

The second:
“Do you have a blanket?”

The city was
so overrun by refugees that many of them had no place to sleep. At night, the yeshiva
bochurim slept in their clothes on benches in unlit, unheated shuls.
The lucky ones had blankets with which to cover themselves and provide a
measure of comfort and warmth.

“Yes, boruch
Hashem, I do,” said Yankel.

Then came the
third and final question: “Please, can I see your shoes?”

An
embarrassed Yankel showed the aged gadol hador, upon whose shoulders
rested all of Klal Yisroel, the ripped strands of leather wrapped around
his feet.

Upon seeing
them, Rav Chaim Ozer reached into his pocket and gave the boy money, telling
him to use it to purchase a pair of shoes. “This is your new home,” he added.
“Whenever you need something, I want you to come here and I will take care of you,
any time of day or night.”

When Yankel
heard that, instead of dancing for joy, he began to cry uncontrollably. He
remembers that he cried because someone cared about him. Someone felt what he
felt. He wasn’t all alone. He cried from emotion at feeling, once again, the
love he’d left back at home. Someone actually cared about him.

When I was in
Far Rockaway, I asked people, “What do you want from us? What do you want us to
do?” The response was repeated again and again: “We want you to know what we
went through. We want people to know what went on here. We need people to know
what we experienced. We need their help.”

In other
words, they were saying that they need us to care. They need us to show that we
care. They need us to show that we feel the pain of our brothers and sisters.
They are in distress. They need our help. They need money to get their lives
back together. They don’t need us asking silly questions about insurance and
FEMA. They need boilers, they need heaters, they need food, they need a stove;
they need mattresses.

And yes, they
need blankets.

• • • • •

On that
heartbreaking note, with devastation at home and war in Eretz Yisroel, did the
month of Cheshvan end. And as goes the story of our people, the notes of
tragedy were followed by the inevitable notes of hope.

Kislev, a month when tzaddikim rebuilt a Bais Hamikdosh
that had been sullied and defiled, was ushered in with a resounding song of
promise; a mass event dedicated to paying tribute to a man who embodied
resilience and hope, who did the ultimate rebuilding in the aftermath of
ultimate destruction.

Rav Aharon
Kotler zt”l arrived on these shores to confront an organized Jewry that
was, in most cases, apathetic, and sometimes even cynical and mocking. Europe,
with its values and customs, was over, they assured him. America was different.

Rav Aharon
looked them in the eye, and with the tenacity that defines an am keshei oref,
he told them otherwise.

For us,
today, it is difficult to imagine that, in his day, Rav Aharon was in the minority
on so many levels, philosophically and in other ways. It’s hard to imagine what
the world looked like after the war. Torah Jews were mocked and given little
chance. Musmochim took shtellers in Conservative and Traditional shuls
because they wanted job security and Orthodoxy was about to perish. The
anti-Kotlers, as they referred to themselves, occupied almost every position of
power in Judaism.

But Rav
Aharon wasn’t deterred. He didn’t see them. He didn’t hear them. He stood up to
them. He had the courage to tell them to their face that they were resho’im,
that they represented the force of evil. He didn’t see them, because he had
true vision. He didn’t hear them, because he heard the eternal word of Hashem
and followed it.

Think about
the amount of Torah studied and the lives of Torah being lived today thanks to
one man’s mesirus nefesh to carry on an unrelenting battle for the
truth, never bending to conventional wisdom, to what everyone said and to what
everyone thought. He was never influenced by the times or by the air of churban
that surrounded him.

He laid the
groundwork that allowed tens of thousands of ehrliche people to come
forth. He inspired those of his generation to seek greatness, not compromise,
growth and not regression. He breathed life into a nascent group which was
sputtering. His fire gave light and warmth to those who had none. It lit the
path which led to what we see today.

As the flame
of Torah in his day flickered because it didn’t have enough fuel; and only weak
wicks with which to draw the small amount of oil, he touched them with his
torch and flames shot forth, lighting up the entire continent and bringing to
life the embers of a Jewry decimated by the Holocaust.

He taught
everyone to hear the bas kol and ignore every other sound. He taught a
generation that if they could withstand the tide and let it wash over them,
they would triumph. They did.

And so, on
Sunday, there was a sea of people who gathered at the yeshiva Rav Aharon
established. The people just kept coming, thousands upon thousands, one after
another. They came to celebrate a legacy. They came to celebrate the triumph of
truth, the triumph of Torah. They came to say no to compromise, no to
negativity, and no to cynicism. They came to say yes to greatness, yes to
growth, and yes to the future.

During these
days, when we face oppression on so many fronts, with forces of hate in Eretz
Yisroelandthe after-effects of a hurricane in New York,
Sunday’s gathering in Lakewood could not have come at a better time. It
announced that we will persevere. We will overcome. We will triumph. We are an
eternal people. The great soul that breathed fire into Bais Medrash Govoah and Yahadus
Hane’emonah both here and in Eretz Yisroel knew it. Our growth is proof of
it.

The Israeli
Jews under attack live with that truth, as do the good people of Sea Gate, Far
Rockaway and all the other communities that are rebuilding their homes and
lives.

It is
incumbent upon us to demonstrate in every way we can that we care about them.

Lakewood
reached the pinnacle at which it stands today because of people who care enough
about Torah to support it.